Fountains of Wayne
No Better Place: Live in Chicago

Concert recordings from power-pop outfits are never easy to assemble. Removed
from the intensity of a small theater or club, the music is left to stand on its
own. Although bands try their best to replicate the arrangements they originally
had created in the studio, the glimmer of perfection inevitably is tarnished by
the inherent single-take ambience of a live performance. Fountains of Wayne is
not immune to these difficulties, and as pleasant as the material on its new DVD
No Better Place: Live in Chicago happens to be, it hardly serves as a
replacement for the albums that already exist in the collective’s canon. It also
suffers from many of the same symptoms that had plagued the ensemble’s early
endeavors.

Considering that the bulk of No Better Place: Live in Chicago was
recorded in October 2005, it isn’t surprising that Fountains of Wayne’s set was
stuffed with material that was culled from its breakthrough endeavor
Welcome Interstate Managers. Nevertheless, while the swooping, MTV-style visuals
attempt to re-create the energetic atmosphere of the show, it’s impossible not
to think that, at times, the group merely was bluffing its way through the
performance. Fountains of Wayne rattled through 16 songs in under an hour, but
after playfully injecting a snippet from Derek and the Dominoes’Layla
into its opening statement I’ve Got a Flair, the outfit quickly settled
into a routine that felt rather perfunctory.

Nearly three-quarters of the way through the concert, Fountains of Wayne
unveiled Stacy’s Mom, a song that remains its biggest hit single.
Although, by all accounts, the group should have grown tired of the tune by this
point, it instead served as the show’s turning point. The band parlayed the
tune’s Buddy Holly-meets-The Cars motif into enough rocket fuel to propel the
rest of its performance. Subsequent cuts, such as Bright Future in Sales,
Maureen, and Survival Car, were delivered with the
adrenaline-soaked intensity of Cheap Trick and Weezer.

Between the release of Welcome Interstate Managers and
Traffic and Weather, Fountains of Wayne reached a new plateau with its work. Lyrically,
the band continued to explore the same themes of isolation and disconnection
that it always had. However, the stronger narrative arcs of Traffic and
Weather’s material conveyed greater emotional depth, while its arrangements
grew more complex. Considering Fountains of Wayne’s evolution, now is as good a
time as any for the outfit to reflect upon how it got to this point in its
career. Sure enough, No Better Place: Live in Chicago provides an
intriguing perspective on the matter.

Specifically, Fountains of Wayne’s five-song, acoustic performance from
December 2008, which has been tacked onto the end of No Better Place: Live in
Chicago, highlights just how far the group has come. Although the
differences between these versions and their original incarnations are
relatively minor, the music and the lyrics are more durable because they are
more dimensional. In the end, newcomers would be better served by allowing
Traffic and Weather to guide them to the outfit’s next destination, while
Fountains of Wayne’s longtime fans will find that No Better Place: Live in
Chicago is, if nothing else, a suitable concert souvenir.